


Alone

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Anger Management, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, No Smut, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: When Jack needs someone to take her anger out on, who better than the level-headed Drell? Unfortunately for her, Thane sees more in her than she wants him to, and he's the one person she can't scare off with a sharp word.





	Alone

The first time, her anger walks in before she does. Nothing but fury, tattoos, and the blue spark of biotics.

 

Thane turns his back to Jack, his hands folded on the table of the room he took as his.

 

She says nothing. Not unusual; even when Jack speaks, she says nothing.

 

She paces the room, one side to the other, coming into view as she nears the far wall. Even with that, she doesn’t speak, doesn't look at him.

 

Thane allows the silence to sit between them.

 

If she wishes to talk to him, she will.

 

She stops in front of his table, her chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid jerks.

 

He lifts his gaze to hers. So much pain masquerading as anger.

 

She narrows her eyes to slits before she slams her fist on the table and walks out.

 

Thane sighs before resuming his prayers, alone.

 

#

 

The next time is a week later. Thane stretches in his quarters, working loose the tension from the last mission.

 

They'd found Grunt, a Krogan bred, not born. Whether he would serve their mission well or not, time would tell.

 

He'd watched Jack during the mission. Years of training have honed his skills, his focus, his reactions. Jack has none of those. She throws herself into battle with a cry and nothing else, as if she doesn't care if she makes it or not.

 

_Eyes flashing, blue enveloping her form, muscles twisting, death and-_

 

Thane shakes the memory clear. She is unusual. Not evil, not uncaring, and yet she does evil things. Like him, but not.

 

This time, when the door opens, he knows it is her without turning. She has a presence, a spark in the air, the scent of pain and oil from the engineering section she lives in.

 

The pacing starts. Back and forth, back and forth. This time, she catches his gaze on each pass.

 

Still, he remains quiet. He resumes his stretches, reaching down to his feet, rolling his shoulders as if she doesn’t fume mere feet away.

 

She stops in front of him, lips pulled back to bare her teeth. They catch the glow of the lights. "I don't want to fucking talk."

 

Thane tilts his head at the odd words, the declaration against something he hasn’t said.

 

She presses her lips together before turning and leaving him alone again.

 

#

 

_The room, small and dark and closed off. Light through the grime on the window painting stripes on black tattoos. 'It wasn't like this,' she says, hands in fists._

 

The door opening pulls Thane back to the present. They aren't in that place any longer, the place where humans turned Jack into whatever she is now.

 

He doesn't turn from his spot at the table. No reason to.

 

She doesn't pace. Instead, she sits on the floor behind him.

 

Back to back.

 

"Why don't you fucking talk to me?" Her voice holds an accusation.

 

"You haven't wished to speak."

 

"So? Doesn't stop any other fucker here from trying to crawl into my head and rearrange shit."

 

He leans forward, elbows on the table. "No one can fix things for another person. I'm here to listen, or when you wish to pace. That is enough. The rest is up to you."

 

The chair creaks as she leans her back against it. "I wish I remembered like you do. Everything is blurry, wrong, different. I remember shit, but it doesn't fit with what I saw. I wish I knew for sure."

 

"Does it matter?"

 

"Course it fucking matters."

 

He straightens and leans back. They're almost touching. "Does it? I remember one day when Kolyat was young. He was sitting beside a lake, his mother beside him. _The water licks at his legs. He laughs, skin catching the light, holding his mother's hands. He’s scared, but she promises, ‘nothing will happen.’_ "

 

Jack hits the back of her head against the chair.

 

It shakes him free. "Sorry. My point was, it was a good memory. A picture of him as a child. If you were to ask Kolyat about that day, he would remember his mother playing with him while his father was gone. He had no idea I watched him from afar. The memories are different but neither wrong. Even when you remember something with perfect clarity, it still is molded by your perception. Sometimes the details don't change it at all."

 

She says nothing back. A sigh, full of frustration, fills the room. The leather of her boots creak as she fidgets. "Maybe. Maybe it doesn't fucking matter. Blew that shit to hell where it belongs. The past doesn't do shit, right?"

 

"Our past is part of who we are. We come to terms with it, or it drags us under. We cannot fight it, so we have to accept it."

 

"Yeah, well, nothing's dragging me under, and in case you haven’t noticed, I fight everything."

 

She's up and off the floor in a flash, and he's alone again.

 

 

#

 

 Thane wakes up to a figure in his room, seated at the foot of his bed.

 

It takes him a moment for the darkness to clear and recognition to come.

 

"Jack?"

 

She leans in as if it will help her see. "You were right. Doesn't matter what I remember, what I know. Shit doesn't fix anything. I keep thinking about it all, keep trying to figure it out, and it still burrows there. It’s in my skull, and I want to just dig that shit out."

 

Thane sits up, hand pressed to the bed behind him. He lets her rant. He has no answers for her, no great truths. She’s disconnected, soul and body out of sync, and he can’t fix that. Only she can become whole again.

 

Jack’s voice slides through the darkness, quiet and soft and nothing like the hissing anger he's grown used to. "How do you do it? How do you move forward?"

 

"Time. When I found out I had Kepral Syndrome, I decided to do things differently. I chose to try and right some of my wrongs, to leave the world a brighter place than I had found it."

 

Jack crawls forward on the bed, her knees on the outsides of his legs, her hands going to the headboard behind him. It brings her face to just in front of his. Her breath spills across his lips, warm and sweet. "So, all I have to do is get some fucking disease that’ll kill me? That fixes everything? That's the big secret? That how you got so fucking wise?"

 

He lets his eyes close, drawing her into his lungs. "What are you doing here, Jack?"

 

Her lips press to his jaw before her tongue runs along the ridges of his fins. "Shut up, would you?" She pushes her hands against his chest, but she can't budge him.

 

"Stop." He forces the word out even when he doesn’t want her to. It’s been too long. Too many dark nights when he’s given himself to the memory of his wife, too long since an actual person touched him. Still, he stops her.

 

She rakes her teeth over his bare shoulder. "Why? You turn down easy sex very often? It's fucking, Thane, nothing to get your panties bunched over."

 

He pulls in a deep breath before he uses a hand on her arm to make her sit back.

 

She remains in his lap, scowl crossing her features. Ah, there she is. Angry Jack. Defensive Jack. The Jack who might kill him just because.

 

"If you wish to talk, talk."

 

"I don't want to fucking talk. I'm tired of talking. I just want to feel normal, to not think about this bullshit in my head." She pulls her hands from him and crosses her arms. It causes her breasts to push together, and Thane lifts his gaze from them.

 

Focus.

 

"And what brought this on?"

 

"Nothing." She pulls back, rejection moving across her features, along the edges of her anger.

 

Thane catches her chin. "You came here for a reason. You keep coming back for a reason. Do not lie to either of us about what that reason is."

 

"Yeah, I have, and you aren't offering up what I came for."

 

A soft shiver runs through her as his thumb strokes over her jawline. Skin, so soft compared to his. Strange to think such a strong creature would have such fragile skin. She could take out mechs with her biotics, yet a single nail could draw blood.

 

"That may be what you're willing to settle for, but it isn't why you came. It hasn't been why you've continued to come back."

 

Jack turns and nips his thumb then soothes the spot with her tongue.

 

He pulls his hand back. "Careful. My skin has a mild toxin on it. It can cause hallucinations in humans."

 

Her eyebrow lifts, lips pulling into a smirk. Ah, trouble. "Well, that has promise."

 

Thane slips his hand to the back of her neck and pulls her in. He presses his lips to her forehead, his thumb rubbing circles over her skin. She shudders, tense and uneasy in the embrace. More coaxing and the tension eases from her, muscle by muscle unknitting before she rests against him.

 

"Can I stay?" Her words are muffled by the embrace and by her reluctance to ask for anything.

 

He brushes his cheek against hers before he settles back on the bed. "Of course."

 

Jack slips from his lap.

 

He misses the warmth, the smoothness of her skin, the way she trembles. So many tiny details to take in, to savor, to miss.

 

She shifts over and stretches out beside him. Her clothing, or what she uses as clothing, hides little. It is her armor, though. He knows it, has seen it in her face. The straps of leather that cover her are the same as her tattoos, as her scowl, and her sharp words and anger. All distractions, all things to make her look comfortable so no one looks too close.

 

Her tongue wets her lips and her gaze moves over his arm, his chest, but she doesn't move closer.

 

No, not Jack. Has she ever spent time near another without sex? Has she ever relaxed beside a person without expectations, without fear, without anger?

 

He doubts it.

 

So, Thane reaches out to pull her closer. He slides an arm around her, his chin resting on her shaved head, the soft prickles of freshly grown hair stroking him.

 

Jack curls against his chest, a heavy breath warming him, her nails digging into his back, and he’s not alone.

 

Right then, neither of them are.

 


End file.
